Microsoft’s Windows has become the third most popular smartphone operating
system in the world, overtaking the BlackBerry OS for the first time.

But the two are still well behind Android and iOS, which had 79 per cent and 14.2 per cent of the global market respectively for the second quarter of this year, according to a report.

Microsoftmanaged 3.3 per cent of the market for the same period, with 7.4m units sold worldwide, while BlackBerry fell into fourth position with only a 2.7 per cent market share and 6.1m units sold.

This time last year, BlackBerry was ahead with 7.9m units sold and a 5.2 per cent market share, with Microsoft on a 2.6 per cent share and 4m units.

Anshul Gupta, a research analyst at Gartner Inc., which compiled the data, said Microsoft could do more with its software to firm up its position.

“While Microsoft has managed to increase share and volume in the quarter, Microsoft should continue to focus on growing interest from app developers to help grow its appeal among users,” Mr Gupta said.

The report also showed that smartphone sales leapt by 46.5 per cent from the second quarter of 2012 to this year, with an estimated 225 million units of the devices reaching users.

It is the first time smartphone sales have outstripped those of regular handsets, with 210 million ‘feature phones’ sold over the same period – a decline of 21 per cent year on year.

The biggest growth area for smartphone handsets was Asia, with a reported rise in sales of 74.1 per cent, followed by Latin America and Eastern Europe, with rises of 55.7 per cent and 31.6 per cent respectively.